Love your church more than its health (spiritual state)

This is an appeal to those who are passionate about doctrine. To those who have their own opinions on ecclesiology. To pastors and elders who believe that the Bible applies to the practices and structures of the church.

Support me! I say this for myself, for all of us at 9Marks, and perhaps for you. I thank God for you and am happy to count myself a co-worker with you in service for the Kingdom of Christ.

But there is a temptation that I have noticed in myself and in you: we can love our vision of what the church should be more than we love the people who make up its membership. We can be like the single man who loves the «image and idea of the perfect wife,» but when he marries the real woman, he finds it harder to love her than the image and idea of her. Or the mother who loves her dream of the perfect daughter more than the daughter herself.

This is a hidden danger for all of us who have learned so much through books, conferences, and ministries about «healthy churches.» We begin to love the idea of a healthy church more than the church God has placed us in.

I remember overhearing a pastor in a church getting upset about a family who allowed their unbaptized children to participate in the Lord’s Supper as the bread plate was passed down their row. What struck me was his tone. He was disappointed and a little dismissive, like, «How could they?! Fools!» But these people were untrained sheep. Of course, they didn’t know any better. And God gave them this pastor not to be upset with them, but to love them and help them understand better. At that moment, it seemed like this pastor loved his vision of a biblical church more than he loved these people.

How easy it is to answer like this pastor.

What I don't mean

I am not saying that we should love people and forget about biblical health, as if the two things can be separated. No, that would be setting the love of God and the Word of God against each other. To love someone is to wish him or her well, and only God defines what «good» is. To love your church means, in particular, to desire its growth in all that God defines as good. It means to desire that your church grow in a biblical direction.

Simply put, if you love your children, you want them to be healthy.

So what do I mean when I say that we should love the church more than its health?

Back to the Gospel

When Christ died for the church, He made it His own. He identified it with Himself. He put His name on it. That is why persecuting the church is persecuting Christ (Acts 9:5), and why sinning against an individual Christian is sinning against Christ (1 Cor. 8:12; cf. 6:15). Both individually and collectively, we represent Him.

Think about what this means. It means that Christ has put His name on immature Christians, on Christians who talk too much in church meetings, on Christians who wrongly allow their unbaptized children to partake of the sacrament, on Christians who enjoy superficial praise songs. Christ has identified Himself with Christians whose theology is underdeveloped and imperfect. Christ points to Christians who wrongly oppose biblical leadership structures and church discipline practices and says, «They represent me. Sin against them—sin against me!»

How great, wide, high, and deep is the love of Christ! It covers a multitude of sins and embraces the sinner. In fact, it does more than embrace the sinner. It places the full weight of its own identity and the glory of Christ upon the sinner—"my name shall be in them, and my glory shall be in them.".

We must always return to the Gospel, right?

Give yourself completely, pastor, not just a part of yourself.

A theologian helped me understand an important aspect of evangelical love by distinguishing between giving a part of myself and giving my whole self. When I give a part of myself to you, I give you what I have: my wisdom, my joy, my material possessions, or my strength in general. Of course, I don’t really risk anything in the process, because I get praise for giving. In fact, I could give everything I have, even my body, to the flames, and not have love. However, when I give myself, I don’t just give what I have; I give myself completely. I identify my «self» with your «self.» I begin to pay attention to your name and reputation because I see them as one with mine. All the glory I can have becomes yours, and all the glory you have is the glory I enjoy most. It is my glory too!

This is how we are to love one another in the church, because that is how Christ loved us. We don’t just embrace one another; we place the weight of our identities on one another. We share each other’s joys and sorrows. «And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it» (1 Cor. 12:26). We consider one another better than ourselves, just as Christ did for us (Phil. 2:1-11). In fact, we have taken on the same «family name (of Christ),» and so we are now brothers and sisters (Matt. 12:50; Eph. 2:19; etc.).

If you offend my brother, you offend me. If you deceive my sister, you deceive me. There is no common business in the church. It is all personal because the Gospel is personal. He died for you, Christian. He died for me. So that we might represent and look like Him. (Yes, He remains the ultimate focus of our love for one another, just as His love for us was given so that we might love the Father—the ultimate focus of His love.)

If all Christians should love like this, then we pastors and elders should do it doubly so.

To say that we should love the church more than its health means this: we should love people because they belong to the Gospel, not because they follow the rules of a healthy church, good and biblical though that rule may be. It means that we should love them for what Christ has done and proclaimed, not for what they do.

If you love your children, you want them to be healthy. But if you love your children, you love them whether they are healthy or not.

Of course, you can rejoice when a brother or sister grows theologically. You rejoice in the greater unity in the truth that you now share (see 2 John 1). But your evangelical love—your love that «Christ died for us while we were yet sinners»—should extend no less to a brother who is theologically, ecclesiastically, and even morally imperfect, because such love is based on the perfection and truth of Christ, not on the perfection of the brother.

Pastor, if your church is filled with weak believers, you should still identify with them as much as you do with the strong. Perhaps you feel more like (a popular expression among reformers) a mature brother who shares your theology. That’s great. But if that theologically minded brother asks you to share his disdain for a less theological or mature brother, tell him, «Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. We had better make merry and be glad, for this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found» (Luke 15:31-32).

Pastor, love your flock as sons and daughters. Get involved in their lives, cheering them on as they score their free throws and as they fall running around the field. Feel their laughter and their fears as if they were your own. Bear with their misunderstandings. Do not feel threatened when they speak disparagingly to you. Answer curses with blessings. Remember that eradicating sin from the heart is a slow process, and they cannot always help themselves. Be patient as He who was patient with you.

Or, to use another biblical metaphor, your love for the church should be a love «in better times and in worse times, in richer times and in poorer times, in sickness and in health,» even if it’s not a love «till death do us part.» Isn’t that right? Shouldn’t you be as devoted to your church as you are to your own body, because that’s how Christ loved you and me?

This is how Paul loved

That's how Paul loved the churches. He gave his whole self, not just a part of himself. He told the Philippians that they were his "joy and crown" (Phil. 4:1). He said the same thing to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 2:19-20).

Pastor, do you consider the stubborn and theologically naive Christians in your church to be your joy and crown? Do you identify with them to that extent? Paul calls the churches his «boast» (2 Cor. 1:14; cf. 2 Thess. 1:4). What about you?

Paul told the Corinthians that they were his «beloved children» and that he was their «father through the gospel» (1 Cor. 4:14-15). He felt the same way about the Galatians, Timothy, and Titus (Gal. 4:19; 1 Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4).

Pastor, have you attached your name and reputation to your church, as a father does to his son?

How often we hear words of love and longing from Paul! He opens his heart wide and longs for the churches to do the same (2 Cor. 6:12-13). He longs to see them and be with them (Rom. 1:11; Phil. 4:1; 1 Thess. 3:6; 2 Tim. 1:4). He describes his longing: «For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ» (Phil. 1:8). And he knows that his own troubles and sorrows are for the comfort and salvation of the churches, and his comfort is for their comfort (2 Cor. 1:6). Paul did not give part of himself to the churches, keeping a little for himself, as Ananias and Sapphira did. He gave himself completely.

And Paul didn't just love mature Christians in this way. Read his letters and you'll quickly remember how unhealthy many of those churches were!

May the Spirit of God increase our love so that we may imitate Paul as Paul imitated Christ.